


progress

by riccitikkitavi



Series: feel a little closer (the further i go) [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 2014 Winter Olympics, A Wild Shaun White Appears, M/M, a few mentions of alcohol use, also i know nothing about anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 22:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11564358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riccitikkitavi/pseuds/riccitikkitavi
Summary: Two bros, chillin' at a pre-Olympics event, 50 feet apart 'cause they're...working through some stuff.orKent Parson is not okay; but he wants to be. Kevin Day has a lot of the same internalized issues. I could probably make a pun about stars colliding, but really. Each could probably learn a bit from the other.orThe rarest of rarepairs.





	progress

**Author's Note:**

> check please timeline is pretty much normal. I have no idea what's going on in terms of aftg, so...imagine what you will. what time does this take place? who even knows!!! preseason i guess. presumably before december 14th.

Kent was admittedly not a huge exy fan. Sure, he'd caught a few games and sort of knew most of the rules and a few major teams, but when it came down to it, he just didn't have much time to get really into any sport other than hockey. Still, he hadn't been living under a rock the past few years. He knew who the prodigal son of exy, or whatever ESPN was still calling Kevin Day, was. 

No, what Kent couldn't account for was why Day kept staring at him. Or, why the two men who seemed to have stubbornly attached themselves to him for the night - one, Neil Josten, he recalled from the news, but the other’s name escaped him. Something with an E? an A? Maybe an M? whatever—rolled their eyes and pushed Day none too gently each time they caught him at it. 

Aces’ PR must have caught Kent puzzling the matter over instead of socializing, because eventually, Intern Kelly came over to yell at him. (Intern Kelly had already been working for public relations when Kent was first drafted, so he never got the full story as to why someone named Courtney who, as far as he could tell, had always held a permanent position, was called Intern Kelly.) 

He made a conscious effort to smile at the middle-aged woman as she approached, and was rewarded with a grimace. 

“C’mon, Parson. Don't give me that press bullshit.” 

That wiped the smile off his face. He tried to remember how his muscles had been positioned and—yup, yeah, he'd definitely been giving her his patented “I'm dying inside” press conference smile. Kent replaced it with a smirk in lieu of a verbal apology. 

“Much better,” she confirmed for him, a hint of fondness escaping despite her affected brusque demeanor. “I’d take that stupid look any day over whatever the hell _that_ was.” 

“Oh, Kelly, you flatter me,” Kent knew if he engaged in a battle of sarcasm with Intern Kelly, she’d crush him to itty bitty pieces, so he cut to the chase. “Are you here to yell at me? I’ve been sociable, I swear.” 

“I know you have, and you’ve done great, but listen: I’m gonna need you to stop. I don’t care if you’re both out athletes, or whatever this weird eye contact thing you got going on with Neil Josten is: he is a publicity pipe bomb, and I will not stand for my _favourite_ player to be recruited by his band of stick-ball playing, press-hating, growth-stunted misfits.” 

Kent stared at her a half second too long before registering that she was, in fact, mostly joking, and laughed to pretend like he’d understood her all along. _Smooth._ Intern Kelly, ever omniscient, called that particular bluff with the same speed she’d caught his Official Press Face. 

“Laugh all you want, but us little people in public relations, we talk amongst ourselves. Rumour has it Josten’s driven off no less than seven PR _firms._ That’s _firms,_ not _agents._ ” 

“I’m sorry, was that a bit? ‘Us little people?’ Are we doing a bit?” 

“Parson. _Firms._ ” 

“I got it, I got it. Don’t become indoctrinated or whatever. Listen, I gotta go do a…thing.” 

“Parson!” 

“C’mon, Intern Kelly, it’s not my fault he’s standing next to the most famous man in all of exy. Us poster children, we gotta talk amongst ourselves some.” 

“It was not a _bit!_ ” 

Kent’s quest to ruin his status as Intern Kelly’s favourite client, or whatever his goal had been in approaching the man he had just been told to avoid at all costs was abruptly interrupted by a blur of dark hair sweeping into his peripheral vision. He was well aware mentally of the fact that he was at a dinner for Team USA Olympic athletes, but facts did little to keep that odd little stutter out of his chest—or the swell of relief that washed from head to toe as Jeff Troy cut across his line of sight, severing Kent’s instant of panic before it could spiral into anything more pressing. 

Yeah, that was a knee-jerk reaction he’d be over-examining for a few hours on his shower floor tonight. 

“Yo, cap, you think the Schooners’ll be pissed at all the Aces rep this time around?” 

“Swoops, if you’re about to suggest picking a twitter fight with Rankin to find out, I think—” 

“—and, sent.” Swoops pocketed his—shattered, from a night out Kent could unfortunately remember a little too well—phone with a flourish and offered up a shit-eating grin. “You were saying?” 

“Jesus, dude,” Kent sighed dramatically for proper emphasis. “I was saying that I just got chewed up by PR for being looked at too much by the captain of the exy team. I don’t even...you might wanna steer clear of Intern Kelly for a bit.” 

“Oops,” Swoops said, looking approximately 0% remorseful. “But can we skip back to the bit where you’re getting looked at by the captain of the scientifically proven most murder-y sport because _whoah,_ man. He a Falcs fan or something?” 

“I dunno, man. Wanna find out?” Kent scanned the room for—the three musketeers? No, he definitely needed to work on his on-the-spot labelling skills. 

“Parse, you know my antagonistic ass yearns to pick any fight I can find, but I’d prefer to be alive when we beat Wheezy and his band of…stupid…maple…lovers.” 

“Wow. Utterly devastating.” 

“Shut up and listen to the words coming out of my face-hole. Day’s cronies will _murder_ you. Dude, I’m not even kidding. You know my cousin Ricky? He went to college with those guys. Nearly lost his soccer scholarship on account of the psycho twins tryna fucking kill each other every other day.” 

“Oh. Shit.” 

“Yeah, no shit, dude. Really man, what’d you do to start all this?” 

“I have no fucking—wait. Shit. I haven’t said I wanted to fuck him on snapchat or something, have I?” 

Swoops groaned a very exasperated groan. “Again? That’s just fuckin’ A. Christ, what is this, the fourth rivalry you’ve started by propositioning people on social media?” 

“How was I supposed to know the guy was dating Bella Thorne?” 

“Parse, my dude. Focus. Is there any other reason you can think of as to why Kevin Day might be staring you down?” 

Kent scanned through recent memories of late night twitter rants and came up relatively empty—unless the dude had strong opinions about Halsey discourse. Of course, thinking back far enough meant eventually hitting the 2009/2010 brick wall of—well, that whole mess. 

“Not unless I propositioned his girlfriend while blackout drunk or something.” 

“Dude, what if you blacked out and fucked his girlfriend?” 

“Dude, what if I blacked out and propositioned _him?_ ” Kent hissed back. 

“Dude, what if you blacked out and fucked _him?_ ” Swoops replied with mock-sincerity. 

“Dude, fuck off.” 

“…dude.”  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Kevin really did like parties and people. As long as he wasn’t asked too many annoying questions and no one brought up the dreaded R-words, he frequently went so far as to even enjoy himself. Tonight, an evening filled with the most prominent athletes in the country, ranked closer to the less-than-tolerable end of the scale. 

Yet another deceptively friendly face popped in for a conversation, making for a total of count ‘em one, two, three, _four,_ innocent ice breakers turned to Riko. Kevin chided himself for the immediate thought that struck—regressive—like lightning: _Death cannot vanquish the devil._

No, tonight would definitely call for backup. And the kicker? It was a g-ddamn optional event. Some sort of gala type thing, whose organizing committee apparently thought to themselves, “You know what would really bring in publicity for the 2014 Team USA? The sullen exy captain who lost gold to Japan in 2012,” and sent out invites accordingly. And like a fool, he'd accepted. 

But the real kicker, what _really_ got his goat, one might say, wasn't even mildly related to Kevin’s level eight tragic back story. No, it was the smirky blonde sauntering around like he owned the place—and, well, begrudgingly as it may have been, Kevin did have to admit the guy looked damn good doing it. 

Which was sort of the problem. Because, as Kevin explained in his panicked bathroom call to an entirely indifferent Andrew Minyard, he, uh, kindofmaybedidsomethingstupid the last time that smirk was flashed his way. 

Stupid as in, he offered to buy the owner of the smirk a congratulatory drink. 

Stupid as in, between the two of them they caught a lot of stares and downed a _lot_ of vodka. 

Stupid as in, he can't entirely remember who said what or how it went down but he doesn't think of red and black cars the same way anymore. 

Stupid because his career was now in the hands of someone the same kind of fucked up as him. 

Calling Andrew—an ever unpredictable endeavor—appeared to have actually yielded a degree of success because eventually in through the door walked a somewhat irritated Neil Josten accompanied by a somewhat confused Matt Boyd. 

“Andrew says if you buy him black label again, he’ll gut you,” Neil greeted him, and Matt shrugged at hearing it, as if to say, “I have no idea why I’m here, but that sounds about right for Andrew.” 

“I figured.” Kevin responded, because he was an excellent conversationalist. 

“So, uh, what exactly are we here to _‘save’_ you from?” Matt asked hesitantly in the middle of the subsequent awkward pause. “All we know is Andrew’s a dickhead with a vendetta against explaining things to people.” 

“Oh…right,” Kevin stalled, and was for the first time in his life thankful beyond all belief for the sudden appearance of Shaun White, who, in a matter of mere seconds, introduced himself as a “big fan,” made a very uncomfortable joke about skiing, and sloshed a considerable amount of liquid out of his glass and onto Neil’s shoes, all without sparing a moment for Kevin to get a word in edgewise. 

“So,” Neil cleared his throat. “You catch that USC game last night?”  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Swoops’ calming—well, sort of—presence was enough to keep Kent relatively sane for most of the rest of the night. Until, of course, (because anytime he started to think maybe, just maybe, he could get on with his life without blue-eyed ghosts hovering above his shoulder, something was always bound to go wrong) his g-ddamn phone just _had_ to alert him to a notification from his NCBSN app about Samwell’s standings for the coming season—all thanks to Hero Captain Jack Zimmermann. 

And yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have set his phone to send him ECAC hockey notifications. But that was neither here nor there. 

The nice little voice in Kent’s head popped in to remind him: _He’s the only one they ever cared about._ Swoops forgotten, Kent instead focused all his energy on ‘redirecting his internal monologue’ or whatever it was Joan called it in their monthly sessions. 

Jack coming back to hockey was not the end of the world. Kent wouldn’t be second best, not this time. Hell, he could prove it—to the networks, to the NHL, to Jack, to himself. He’d fucking check Crosby into another g-ddamn dimension if that was what it took to win gold, to prove to everyone that he deserved his success just as much, no, more, than the fucking wunderkind. 

Somewhere in the middle of his most likely detrimental attempt at faking self esteem spiralling into panic, Swoops appeared to have picked up on Kent’s clenched fists and stony expression, because he found himself being led to a bathroom to have his panic attack in relative peace. (Because bros don’t let bros ruin their Cool and Collected™ personas.) 

When the pounding in his chest receded to a minimum and he’d gathered enough functionality to make sense of his surroundings, Kent unlocked his phone to a new message.  


  


> **Swoops**  
>  movd cleanin cart 2 door 2 keep ppl out. come find me getting ylld @ by IK wen u wanna hed out [thumbs up emoji] 

  


Kent shot back a “thx,” and then, after a second’s thought, a string of random emojis, before heading to the sink to splash water onto his face until he felt human again. Ready to face the world—or, at least, to face the world for however long it would take to find Swoops and get the hell out of there, he made his way out of the bathroom, sort of surreptitiously kicking the cleaning cart out of the door’s way as he did so. 

When he finally found Swoops, Jeff was surprisingly not being chewed out by Intern Kelly, but instead mid-conversation with Kevin Day, Neil Josten, and the man Swoops had a half hour or so earlier chided Kent for not being able to recognize as Matthew Boyd. Because apparently, he was expected to know the names of every other athlete in Vegas, or something. 

“—shit, really?” Jeff was in the middle of speaking as Kent approached. “Oh, hey, Parse. Look! I found our neighbors.” 

“Hey, nice to meet you guys!” Kent stuck out a hand, trying his damnedest to out-press smile Day when it came time to shake his hand. 

“Sorry for not being able to chat long,” Swoops offered up, actually sounding pretty sincere—probably because he was, the lucky neurotypical bastard. “Kent’s ridiculously named cat goes hand in hand with a ridiculously unavailable cat-sitter, apparently.” 

“Oh, it’s no bother man. I think we’re heading out soon anyways—I’ve got a standing cross-country Skype date to make,” Matt responded, and as a group they all collectively seemed to decide to start heading out the door—Neil trailing along behind Matt and Swoops and saying something about being able to beat Kent with ridiculously named cats, leaving Kent to attempt awkward small talk with a somewhat hostile Kevin Day. 

“So, um, how long’re you in Vegas for?” 

Kevin shrugged, not doing much to hide his obvious discomfort. “Technically? A few days. But, uh, probably coming back more long term. Just finished signing off on a trade.” 

“Oh, uh, cool. I mean, I don’t really know how like, cap space works in exy but wouldn’t that leave the Knights—” 

Kevin cut him off to explain. “Josten’s trading to Chicago. To, uh, be closer to his boyfriend. They were willing to work it faster if a replacement was on-hand.” 

“Oh, right,” Kent remembered now. He’d read something about it—or, well, to be more accurate, about the controversy of Josten choosing Chicago over Milwaukee when his longtime rival was starting goalie for the Bears. “That’s nice of you, to help him.” 

“My girlfriend thinks it was a little too nice,” Kevin laughed, not without a little bitterness. 

“Oh, you guys are—were, I guess, now—teammates, weren’t you?” 

“Uh, yeah. She’s a backliner—Thea Muldani.” 

“Damn, switching to long distance after being so close has gotta be the worst.” 

“Yeah, I mean—well, you’ve been at it long enough, you know how tough relationships are for any athlete.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Kent laughed. “I don’t think I’ve even been on a date since, like, high school.” 

He fidgeted uncomfortably at the loss of that well-kept secret, but something in Day’s demeanor seemed to shift following it, and conversation flowed—well, still pretty awkwardly, but somewhat less so? It was whatever—from there on out. 

“Well, I guess we’ll be seeing each other around,” Kevin said by way of parting. 

“Yeah…feel free to hit me up if you need someone to show you around once you’re back in town. I’m like, basically a professional tour guide at this point.” Walking through his front door later that night, Kent reflected on his earlier conversation with Kevin—and began to think that maybe, against all the odds, he’d managed to—gasp—make a friend. In the rush of adrenaline that revelation brought, he brought up twitter on his phone and followed @KevinDayOfficial. 

Double-checking his alarm was set for the morning—even if he usually woke up before it went off, it wasn’t worth the risk—Kent was surprised to see a notification on twitter: a follow, and a DM saying, “Nice cat.” 

So, yeah. A friend. Three cheers for not being hated by everyone. (Three cheers for progress.)

**Author's Note:**

> listen, I have no idea why I made any of these decisions but I needed these guys to interact. also, yes, I did name the made up Vegas exy team after the irl hockey team. again, I have no answers.


End file.
